Most accumulated waste (AW) arising from human activities in space contains a substantial amount of water and/or oxygen and/or other resources that have been “consumed” in the activities. This accumulated waste puts a burden on a life support system in several ways. First, an initial storage system must be provided to store the not-yet-used resources (e.g., water, nutrients, oxygen for breathing, construction materials) before the resource is (first) used for life support. Second, after first use or any subsequent use, the expended resource must be stored in a separate facility until the project is completed and the waste can be disposed of. Third, the resource and the humans participating in the project must be protected against exposure to radiation, temperature extremes, oxygen deficit, chemical reactions and other undesirable conditions that may contribute to degradation of the resource and/or the human participants.
Much of this waste can be reprocessed and be reused to support the project and/or the human participants, to provide a structure with expandable habitat volume that can be used to house and protect the project and/or the human participants.
In a dry form, some of the residual material (e.g., human waste, including urine and feces) is similar to gypsum wall board and might be sanitized and used for construction of human habitats in regions where conventional construction materials are not available. In a wet form, this residual material may contain 95-99 percent liquid, including but not limited to water, and is potentially useful for radiation shielding.
What is needed is an approach to reprocessing that (i) can separate some construction-useful solid materials from the remainder, (ii) can separate a first portion of the liquid for use as radiation shielding, (iii) can separate and reprocess a second portion of the fluid as potable water for re-use, and (iv) can minimize the volume needed for storage of accumulated waste that cannot be reprocessed and re-used.